Flint will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today

When I see phrases like “State Administration Board” and “application for a $20 million bond,” my eyes glaze over. Yours, too, I imagine.

So allow me to decode the news this week about the State Administration Board delaying action on Flint’s application for a $20 million “stabilization” bond by putting it in a more digestible form.

Imagine you have a brother who is a, well, we won’t call him a deadbeat because he’s family, but he does have a nasty habit of spending money he doesn’t have.

In fact, a few years ago – much to everyone’s embarrassment - he ran up so many bills around town that the sheriff threw him in the clink and had a judge appoint someone to run his finances for him.

The idea was, “If we show him how it’s done, he’ll become smarter about how he spends his money and then he will no longer run up bills that he can’t pay.”

Except it didn’t work. The court-appointed money manager paid off your brother’s staggering bills and got him back on the financial straight and narrow. In fact, the turnaround in his finances was remarkable.

“Surely, he has learned some valuable lessons and will be able to run his own finances from here on out in a responsible, adult fashion,” you thought.

But the second the money manager left town, your brother went right back to his spendthrift ways.

“I can’t help it,” he cried. “I’ve always spent money like it was going out of style and I guess I can’t stop.”

So he didn’t even try. He kept right on spending money hand over fist on things he didn’t need and luxuries he couldn’t afford, and before long he had IOUs floating all over town.

That was when he came to you.

“Brother,” he said. “I’ve proven once again that I have all of the self-discipline and impulse control of a sailor on shore leave. But I’ve changed this time, I swear it. And if you can see your way clear to give me permission to borrow $20 million, I promise I will pay the money back later on with interest.”

Would you trust him? Probably not, which is why the state delayed action on the bond that is a key part of Mayor Walling’s plan for trimming the city’s massive deficit and avoiding further cuts.

Officially, the state has concerns about the city’s “long-term structural operating deficit,” according to the administration board’s attorney, and wants to do it’s “due diligence” to ensure that the city “has a reasonable plan for servicing the debt.”

Translation: The new administration is worried Flint won’t pay the money back and instead will keep on spending like a drunken sailor. That may be a signal the state is considering another take-over of the city.

If it happens, who could blame them? The fear is once a spending addict, always a spending addict. It’s a legitimate concern. And if you don’t agree, answer me this: When’s the last time you heard of someone successfully borrowing their way out of debt?